Most Important Dates of the Decade

What were the most important dates of the past decade? When considering the most important events or dates of the past decade on various Internet lists, one will find that some of the dates or events are listed in various lists as being among the top ten news stories of the decade as well, but some are not.

One event that would be listed in an article of the most important events or dates of the decade, as well as a story of the top ten news articles, would be the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Who can forget where he was and what he was doing on that date when terrorists flew planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon, and into the ground in Pennsylvania? Almost 3,000 people were killed.

The event forever changed the United States and the World, as the War on Terror, involving a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, and cooperation with many other countries in finding and apprehending terrorists and obtaining their money followed.

"September 11 will endure in our memory because, even as our nation confronted its worst fear, the strength of America's spirit and its everlasting commitment to freedom and democracy triumphed," Former Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice commented on the website, Newsweek.com.

Another of the most important dates in history for the last decade was December 12, 2000. On that date, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the way the state of Florida was recounting ballots in the close Presidential election was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and could not be done so in the time the state required. The ruling in effect made George W. Bush the next President, in effect making the original count of votes, which gave Bush the necessary electoral votes and a Florida win, to become president, valid. Three days earlier the Court had temporarily halted the recounts.

Another important date during the decade was November 4, 2008, when Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President of the United States.

On August 29, 2005, 90,000 miles of gulf infrastructure were destroyed when Hurricane Katrina made landfall at Buras, LA. More than 1,800 people died. Millions of lives were destroyed. A humidity that made breathing difficult engulfed Gulf homes. The smell was unbearable. Electricity was gone for weeks.

On Sep15, 2008 Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. To experts, the day was important because before that date, it seemed like all the large banks were competitive with one another. Many came to believe that the failure of one bank could be the first of others to follow. It was, and the country went into a deep recession from which many believe it has not fully recovered yet. On that date Bank of America and Merrill Lynch merged. Two days later the government bought 85 % of AIG, the biggest insurance company in the world.

On March 1, 2002, the United States launched Operation Anaconda, beginning the war in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan was against the Taliban, because of its support of Osama bin Laden, because of his support of the terrorists responsible for September 11, 2001.

On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke before the United Nations to make the case for the fact that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and had violated UN mandates to get rid of them. Because of that and charges that Iraq had supported terrorists who attacked America on September 11, 2001, the United States later went to war with Iraq.

On April 16, 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech University, and more than a dozen were injured in the most murderous rampage in American history. Although Federal law would have prohibited the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, from buying guns because of mental health problems, his records were not in a government database, so he did.

On December 26, 2004, a tsunami struck Indonesia that resulted in a lost of 230,000 lives, after an earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The death totals were from 14 different countries that were affected. As one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history, the earthquake that preceded the tsunami, with a magnitude between 9.1 and 9.3 was the second largest quake in recorded history. The countries hit the hardest were Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Citations: Most Important Dates, Condaleeza Rice, Newsweek.com

Top 10 Top 10 Lists of the Decade, 2000 to 2009, no author listed Culturemob.com
Katrina Makes Landfall, Douglas Brinkley, Newsweek.com
Sept. 15, 2008: Lehman Brothers Goes Bankrupt, Maria Bartimoro, Newsweek.com